Hanging onto Steem Power is about a lot more than wealth accumulation. It is also about the future of the steem blockchain.

Many of you likely have noticed the steemit community, the steem blockchain, and the other projects running on top of the blockchain like busy.org, chainbb, esteem, etc are not like other social media sites on the internet. When it comes to the discussions something magical is happening here. How is it we can discuss things here that on other sites will usually devolve down to name calling, trolling, and general unpleasantness?

Well first though we have the ability to down vote (aka the flag) it generally is not used too often. There are exceptions, but in general unless there is a really good reason to use it most people do not. Using it for a purely opinionated reason that has nothing to do with protecting the community tends to make the person a target. They may find themselves the target of flags after that and they tend to either change their ways or they are not part of this community for long.

There are exceptions. There are occasionally those that have amassed a large amount of steem power that will swing their sword of opinion around and whack posts that the rest of the community may frown upon. When challenged they will typically mention "it is my steem power, and I can vote how I like". This is actually a true statement. Though if everyone were to vote the way they do soon this community would not be the beautiful place that it is. In fact, it'd potentially be far more hostile than any other social media community.

Why would it potentially be more hostile? If you've ever experienced a flag here for purely subjective reasons that had nothing to do with spam, abuse, or plagiarism then it likely had a huge mental impact on you. It likely felt like a gut punch, and for some reason it may have depressed you far more than up votes lift you. Though it is equal to an up vote but in the opposite direction for some reason it seems to impact people far more than the up vote. By many months of observation the reactions would seem to support this. The person will generally act like they are attacked. There are the exceptions who do not react as such and simply roll with it. They do not appear to be the norm.

A key survival mechanism is to NOT fall to the temptation of verbally attacking or flagging the person back that was not particularly nice to you. I've actually never seen this work out too well. I've seen it result in a lot of hostility. It is particularly dangerous to do this if your target is some massive whale. I have challenged people doing these activities before. We each have our own methods, and you don't have to use mine. All I can tell you is that I was always civil. If they called me names, or belittled me I tried really hard to not do the same. It can sometimes be really difficult. Yet, all I can say is I have done this several times and once my target was the 7th most powerful account on steemit at the time. He has laid waste to many others. He did call me names, and belittle me. Yet I replied civil. We kind of in an unspoken way agreed to disagree, and something magical happened. He didn't flag me. He didn't put me on some auto-down vote bot. I once pointed out that the only reason I could think that he didn't flag me was because I was civil, and while it was obvious we disagreed on some things he could tell I cared about steemit and the community. His only response to that was to reply "He is right". So this is how I believe I've managed to not be decimated by a huge powerful person who has no problems swinging the down vote sword. Perhaps my experience might help some of the rest of you.

So what does this have to do with Steem Power?

That was indeed a lengthy build up to the true intention of this post. We love this environment. We love the amazing conversations we have here. We love the fact people should feel free to discuss many topics that often cannot easily be discussed anywhere else. We love that this is decentralized, and thus difficult and potentially near impossible to take down.

With the decentralization comes an issue. You cannot create moderators, and police to force people to behave a certain way. Doing so tends to centralize the power somewhere, and you are giving other humans power that others do not have. They can just as easily turn into a subjective censoring machine. We've seen this happen with moderators at other sites.

So that means WE are the moderators and custodians of this beautiful and potentially world changing experiment.

As you interact and your steem power increases you potentially become more and more capable of helping to keep this project working like it is. This is extremely important. It is perhaps more important than you realize.

The floodgates have not yet opened

There has been no serious advertising attempts made for Steem and Steemit at this point. This is by design and that will change in the near future. When that change occurs we could potentially have millions of people flooding steemit.

They will arrive only being familiar with how facebook, reddit, etc work and they will show up here and try to use steemit like those places until they learn how things operate. Without people like you and I who have accumulated steem power our beautiful community could devolve into something nowhere near as beautiful almost over night. The fact that there are so many of us that have steem power that love this community and know what it is and how it works is the thing that can hopefully stop this from happening.

We will be the custodians that can shepherd the new users towards the way the community works. We are the ones that can hopefully keep it from exploding.

If it gets as popular as I believe it likely will we eventually can have some wealthy people that might buy a lot of steem using money and power up. They could become a big whale instantaneously and they too could start swinging the down vote sword however they want. This could be pretty damaging. The only thing that can help with this is those of us that have been here for a long time banding together and doing something to try to mitigate that when it happens. Odds are this will happen at some point. Murphy's Law tends to kick in. This is especially true of technologically based systems like this one. With our steem power we can hopefully minimize the damage a Murphy's Law type incident might bring with it.

On the positive side if there are people powering up to whales overnight that would quickly drive the value of steem up and thus any steem power you hold will be worth a lot more.

Ups and Downs

It is likely as with anything that the value of steem will fluctuate and go up and down. It could some day drop back to the $0.10/steem it was a few months ago. The key here is not to panic. That is actually a positive time where your posts tend to earn you more and more steem power at a rapid pace. It is also an opportunity to buy steem and power up for a lot less money. So during those down periods there are also some positives. For when one of the up swings comes like the one we've been in for over a month now that steem power that you got for a very low price suddenly becomes very valuable. It has increased by over 10,000% in the last two months.

Steemit/Steem Blockchain has something other crypto currencies do not. It holds something of value beyond simply the currency itself. It holds our creations, and the things we have consigned to be stored in the blockchain. For some people this may be worth more than the currency itself. For this reason I see steem being around for a long time, and potentially due to its staying power becoming the most important crypto currency on the market. The only true competitor at the moment as far as I'm concerned is Ethereum and that is purely due to the smart contract aspect. Though ultimately I believe people's own creations may end up being more important to the masses than smart contracts. It should also be noted we could also do smart contracts on the steem blockchain if people develop it. I suspect they may. The steem blockchain is also way faster than the Ethereum blockchain. Thus, it is actually superior and only currently lacks the smart contract. It should also be noted that as far as Smart Contracts that EOS is on the way an it likely will make Ethereum look like an infant when it comes to smart contracts while also providing a bridge for steem and other currencies. The bottom line is that I don't think steem is going to go anywhere, it is more than a crypto currency. Other than Ethereum the rest of the currencies would have trouble making this claim.

Unless there is a dramatic change, or some new crypto that does all of this better I don't see an investment into steem power and holding onto it as being particularly risky. People talk about currencies being backed by something. Steem is backed by our creations. So is a piece of metal (e.g. Gold) worth more to you than something you created other than for a purely monetary reason? So in reality Steem may be the only crypto out there that actually is backed by something. It is potentially backed by the most important of things. Our own creations, thoughts, and personalities. This is pure genius in design.

Is it me or do I sense some fear here? This is the second post I've read today dedicated mostly to the woes of flagging. What you are saying is that there is a balance issue here, and seemingly nobody has put forth a way to solve the imbalance.

Whales 100% have the ability to swing their sword, to fully censor if they want and there is no moderators to stop them. It truly is Power in the purest sense of the word.

With our steem power we can hopefully minimize the damage a Murphy's Law type incident might bring with it.

So you believe that it is inevitable. There should be more than hope to solve and survive the fallout that you purport to come someday. Flawed is the word that's currently ringing in my ears.

The imbalance has already been solved in code and it'll be effective when Hardfork 19 goes live. It's not scheduled yet, but most likely will be some time this month. Whales will lose an order of magnitude in influence and can be countered easily. Currently, if it currently takes 100 dolphins to counter a whale vote, it'll take only 10 after HF19.

Flawed is right, "broken" is another way to put it. People/supporters can upvote or "buy" the produced content of others with upvotes, and all it takes is one rich petty plutocractic ruler to come along, and say hey I don't like you, or your post, and they just flag it with their accounts or accounts, which is like "unbuying" the allocation of rewards others have supported you with and take any amount they want off if they have the SP (like 95% or even 100% of your rewards, gone!) Check my posts since the end of February and you will see what can happen when you get mistreated and challenge the authority of the Steemit power elite. Does the community at large care? Nope. Many people think these plutocratic rulers who get to do what they want with impunity are int he "right" and "good" for their behavior. It's sad.

I think this is a great article but I think steem can not rest on its laurels. I introduced steem to everyone at work, almost all of them have not yet been approved and the balance have had to have "lessons" on how to use it. If something is going to be adopted by the masses, it's going to need to be easy to use and needs to provide a USP beyond just the fact that it is a cryprocurrency.

Yes, the approval thing is an issue. I still have a lot of people I tried to get into it since I started. Many of them are kicking themselves now. As to learning. It does need to be as easy as we can make it, but it also different so there will always be some curve just because it is different and at the very least people need to realize it is different and find out what that means to them.

Absolutely brilliant post! I agree there is so much potential right here in Steemit and we are basically showing the world a different way, a way that supports creators and encourages good communities. I also think like you say the bad effect of too much power can have. It's wise for the big guns at the moment just to think about it and look at what could happen in these situations and what can be done to benefit the WHOLE community.

You bring up a very good point there: that Steem is probably the only crypto that's backed by something. Not just something but real people with their real creations and their really valuable attention

I wrote in another comment just now that we humans give cryptocurrency value, and without us they're worthless. Steem is one crypto with a special combination of implied value and is backed up by a human-supported, value creation ecosystem that's constantly creating more value for it.

Pure genius in design for sure. Steemit was big even during it's inception, and won't necessarily be big only when the world finally uses it mainstream. Thanks for adding another dimension to my understanding of Steem and cryptocurrencies in general.

Yeah that is kind of how it hit me too... so it was "I have to write about this" type of moment. It was also one of those moments of clarity that I actually managed to write what I was thinking pretty well.

Thanks for this post and perspective... which I am also in agreement with.

We have only seen the tiniest tip of the iceberg-- right now it seems like "we are REALLY growing" with 1000+ new accounts per day... just wait till it's 50,000 new accounts per day. One of the reasons I'm a big proponent of gradual "organic" growth here is precisely that we can get totally swamped if there's a sudden massive publicity campaign. I've seen firsthand what two million new users in two months can do to an unprepared social content site... and it's not pretty.

I'm here for the long haul (I see this as a 5-year plus investment-- hopefully longer!) and plan to gradually keep powering up slowly as time goes by; so far I have taken out very little (just enough to pay a few bills, a couple of times) and don't intend to change that. I have been mostly "hand recruiting" new people to Steemit, and my pitch is not about "making money" but about "becoming stakeholders" as a result of creating content here. Hopefully it's the sort of approach that will help the platform remain stable in the long term.

Yes, you and I are of like mind on this and quite a few other things. I know Steemit Inc. intentionally has not begun their advertising push. Once they do I expect we'll see much larger numbers joining.

Well, until they 100% sure we won't have another episode of new account approvals grinding to a halt for a week (a couple of weeks ago), they have NO business thinking about advertising anything. The "general public" will NOT give time of day to a site that takes 6 days to create an account... what's more, many will go off and post "Steemit is a JOKE" reviews all over creation. Best to avoid that...

Yep. I am fairly certain they don't want huge droves of people yet. Ned pretty much indicated that was such in a weekend podcast a few weeks ago on Steemspeak. He did indicate the time where they would want them was close at hand though.

We can't really know what is coming, so looking at all possibilities and planning ahead to be reasonable, positive, and good role models is important. Anything we practice we will do better when the crunch comes. The true and lasting value of Steem will be the community we form.

Excellent post! Very apt description of Steemit at the moment and going forward. I really love your description of the decentralized Seetmit platform as users being BOTH the moderators and the custodians. Very true. I haven't been around as long as you have but i have seen some ugly disputes break out. I admire how you handled your flagging situation, we could all learn a lot from this.

The Hordes are coming...I have thought about this as well and how it may effect the steemit ecosystem, which is a beautiful thing. Very positive and civil (for the most part). I cringe at the thought of Instagram/FB narcissistic behavior flooding the platform with selfies and shallowness or reddit troll types flinging mud.

I think you've made a great argument for what we need to do as a community to preserve the best qualities of the platform.

That is exactly what I was thinking also! Steemit is such a lovely place, without all the Facebook & Twitter drama. I sure hope it does not turn into that. I am new, but possibly it cant happen because people will start flagging them?

We will deal with it as it happens. If it requires flags ultimately that is what would happen. Hopefully we could educate them as to why their posts are not making much, and why they are not getting as many followers as they would like. The flag should always be a last resort as far as I am concerned.

I agree and i disagree. You're right the design may keep some away but the financial benefits will outweigh the deterrence in my mind. Seriously, imagine if you're a hot babe on instagram and you come to steemit and you post a bunch of bikini pics...that shit is going to make money, unfortunately. Honestly, idk how the community is going to deal with that effectively.

Very well written, lengthy, thoughtful. "Doing so tends to centralize the power somewhere, and you are giving other humans power that others do not have. They can just as easily turn into a subjective censoring machine. " - yes, reminds me of something some.. lived through - communism, yep. I often think of that - human behavior, behavior of the masses (which is all other topic of course, not to dwell into now).
"Steem is backed by our creations." - one reason I joined.

Do what works for you. Sincerity and honesty goes a long way here. I've posted stuff I thought would get me intellectually roasted over a spit here and the opposite actually tends to happen. People are receptive, open, and welcoming. Pretty amazing. It makes you fall in love with this place and community when you bare your soul and fear the results when people view you and instead the treat you like family.

I'm looking forward to the influx of new people, mainly because the people that have been here forever are working really hard to teach us newbies how it works. I'm working hard on learning the platform so that when the influx comes, I can lend the same assistance in turn.

Growing is not always easy, it doesn't always go smoothly but we just have to keep in mind that we are the stewards of this wonderful new world.

Great info in the post and in the comments, thanks to all of you who are working so hard to foster and maintain this community.

It comes in cycles. The fact you don't see it a lot tells you that it doesn't happen often. Some of us have also put a lot of effort in trying to convince those that do it that it truly is not a beneficial thing. We've managed to change some minds, and some attitudes. It wasn't easy. There is no big red easy button we can slap to make it go away. :)

The fact you don't see it much is I think a testament to how truly wonderful this place is. I don't believe pretending these issues do not exist is a good thing either. I'd rather acknowledge problems and try to come up with a positive way to try to approach and deal with them.

It is encouraging that you have written this @dwinblood from the standpoint of a newbie/minnow. I too see the potential of this platform as a change for good. I also think of how easily it could self destruct(as seen through the eyes of a minnow)
So thank you for the reassurance reflected in this post.

Yes, if you can remain civil and stick with it then I think it could change the world. It takes awhile to build up momentum. I went through many $0 posts when I started, and that was during the time that the payouts were the highest they've ever done.

Keep posting, commenting, voting, and being a decent person and you will grow, and do better and better.

I would rather re-word that statement @notoriousdjp into "we only want the best "in" people".
The bad we see in newcomers can be reduced by them emulating our behaviors in a positive way as stated by @dwinblood in his response to you.

Yet, that will realistically not be the case. So we need to be prepared and our job I believe will be to lead by example and show how the community works and what makes it beautiful. This also means we ourselves will need to NOT devolve into their methods when they use them. We need to show what is and is not welcome, in a civil way.

Well said, holding Steem Power is all about responsibility to shape the community. At the same time, it's your stakeholding in the network. The greater your stakeholding, the more you're financially incentivized to act in the community's best interests over your own. It's a great design, indeed.

Regarding flagging - fortunately it'll be an order of magnitude harder to abuse with Hardfork 19. For example, today, a whale's flag needs 10,000 minnows or 100 dolphins to counter. After Hardfork 19, just 10 dolphins or 100 minnows could counter a whale flag. At this point, it is no longer a flaw.

Regarding flagging - fortunately it'll be an order of magnitude harder to abuse with Hardfork 19. For example, today, a whale's flag needs 10,000 minnows or 100 dolphins to counter. After Hardfork 19, just 10 dolphins or 100 minnows could counter a whale flag. At this point, it is no longer a flaw.

Yeah I look forward to seeing that in action. :) Linear curve makes a lot more sense. I can't believe it is n^2 that is just crazy.

True. Also they can have event logs (audit trials) that are documented in a blockchain, this will resolve a great amount of manual work, also this Will result in decrease of people that Will be needed at a finance or tax departement... this will change a lot.

Hi Dwinblood - great article! I agree that we have to do more to help people get started w/ Steemit, especially if we get a flood of new users like you are suggesting. And this is why I am trying to launch WelcomeToSteemit.com as a site to get people started, and in multiple languages!

Steem Power is always worth what steem is. So 1000 steem is technically worth 1000 steem power. However, Steem Power is not the actual coin. It is investment into the blockchain. By design you cannot instantly convert all steem power to steem. This is to prevent Pump and Dump type behavior (or at least reduce it) so the price cannot be pumped and then rapidly dumped and thus crash the currency. This is a problem in most other cryptos.

You can draw steem power out into steem at a rate of 1/15th per week. Theoretically you could get it all out in 15 weeks. If you keep doing activities that keep adding more steem power to your account then of course this could take longer. You would get as much as was there when you began by the 15th week but if you added more in the meantime by being rewarded and such then that may still take a bit longer to get at.

So if you want to ALWAYS have instanteous access to it then steem or steem backed dollers are the way to go.

When you tell your account to power down. 1/15th will be converted into steem within 7 days of the time you indicated you wanted to begin powering down. If you keep powering down another conversion would occur 7 days after that.

If the price goes up or down in that time for the value of steem the steem power does the same.

This is also why you can see the value of posts go up and down when there are no new votes. The reward amount is fluctuating with the value of steem fluctuating.

Thank you very much.. :) currently i want to collect steem power, but steem dollar im converting to steem and saving some. is that fine? also im confused about whaleshares, dont know where to buy from.

Whaleshares are still in beta so aren't being officially sold though some holders have been trading them on the bitshares dex. The best way to get them is through our contests right now. I think you can find all the current ones on my blog. We do giveaways sometimes on our discord server too: https://discord.gg/RRDzn6c

Oh I was talking to family outside of steemit and there is another benefit to Steem Power.

If for some reason someone stole your account. It would take them 7 days to get at ANY of your steem power. Theoretically you hopefully will have noticed and can recover your account in that time. They would only get 1/15th of your steem power and have to wait for 7 days for another 15th. So it would be very difficult for someone to rob you of your steem power.

Steem and Steem Dollars are just like any other wallet. Those they could theoretically loot quickly if they hacked your account. This as far as I know has NOT been an issue, but it is a positive about steem power.

A fantastic post @dwinblood. I have been here for about six weeks now and in that time I have left due to my skeptical distrust of the set up of the platform and returned with the belief that I could do my bit to help make steemit what most of us would like it to be. My knowledge of the platform and how blockchains and crypto works is very limited so perhaps I should not be commenting from a place of ignorance but I believe in fair play and think this is an issue that needs addressing in the current set up of steemit. I understand that building steem power allows all of us the opportunity to have some kind of influence on the site and perhaps this is a good thing but I see too much power in the hands of too few here and whether used for benevolent or malevolent purposes power and influence are still very strong corrupters. We all have a vested interest in steemit becoming financially successful but as you say we all have the responsibility of making steemit the community we want it to be but within any community there will always be those who wish to control the rest.

Perhaps we could set up a steemit council which could consist of representatives from all three different hierarchical groups we have here on steemit. Three minnows, three dolphins and three whales with each representative being selected randomly and serving the community as part of the council for a set limited period. 1 month for example and then the process of selecting new representatives for the following month begins. Perhaps this is a terrible idea. I can accept that if others can explain to me why but the point is we need to start deciding ourselves what our steemit community stands for rather than having this decided by those who have influence only due to their financial investment in the platform or just because they were fortunate enough to be here at the beginning or even because they were the ones who created the platform. I am very thankful to those men and women and have a lot of respect for what has been achieved but if those who created, built up or invested the site have more power and influence over the community then what we have is a virtual representation of the real world society and its problems which we are all supposedly trying to move away from.

I see this platform as having an amazing opportunity to impact the world in a positive way and that is hopefully what we all want but I also see that it has the potential to be a negative in our world and lives unless we take it upon ourselves to protect it from such abuse.

I always try to explain to people just what you mentioned here as I am trying to get them to sign up.

Steem is backed by our creations. So is a piece of metal (e.g. Gold) worth more to you than something you created other than for a purely monetary reason?

Things only have value in so much as one places their value on it. My only question would be is every entry equal in value? Is it the upvotes that determine value if not? What about posts that are better than top posts but receive no attention? Is there a way to objectify value within the blockchain?

One thing that amazes me about Steem is the speed at which everything updates/changes, especially when there is an issue. I love having been a part of the beginnings of such an incredible project.

What about posts that are better than top posts but receive no attention? Is there a way to objectify value within the blockchain?

This happens regularly in life as well. It is mostly about visibility. Something must be noticed to receive votes. So something being perceptually better does not mean that the people that can lift it the most saw it. As we get more people this will spread out more and more. I already often miss some cool posts from people I follow simply because I am not looking at my feed at the right time and I don't have time to go through it in detail every day. I also try to look outside of my feed some as well.

Yet one thing I know is necessary to enjoying being here is to avoid getting hung up on the money. Let it happen when it does. Avoid looking at posts and then thinking, that post did awesome, I should write about the same thing. Avoid looking at one post and thinking that one did better than mine and mine is written so much better.

As all of these things happen in the real world as well. We are just so used to them that we kind of don't pay attention to that anymore. We are desensitized.

You raise some very good points, especially that valuable ideas/entities go unnoticed in the real world. However, do you think that the exposure level of valuable content is going to rise with an influx of new users? I know that there will be many users who will buy into Steem and thereby creating more whales and dolphins to distribute the exposure a bit, but do you not think that a large number of the new users are simply going to accept the loaned SP, if not for the fact they just cannot afford anything else? And if that were the case, if most of them became content creators and were not doing as much curating then would there not be a flood of new content that would wash out even more of the already unnoticed valuable content? (I'm not sure of anything, just spitballing here :] )

And just because something is happening in the real world doesn't make it right. ;) We're doing many things here that we aren't doing in the real world (some of us do, but I mean in general) because they work better. So why not think of a better way to do something?

I totally agree that we shouldn't be hung up on money, and that mirroring posts isn't the best of ideas, but I do think that you can find inspiration through other posts and see how the higher paid posts are formatted and such. Noticing trends and working along with them to set your own, in a manner of speaking.

However, do you think that the exposure level of valuable content is going to rise with an influx of new users?

I think it may be further diluted. Really the best way to get exposure is to get followers, and that takes time. The other ways are if someone with followers notices a great piece and resteems it.

Also we will be switching to a linear curve for voting power instead of n^2 in the next hard fork. I suspect that will change quite a few things for the better. Spread voting power out in a linear progression 1:1 per steem power instead of exponential like it is now. So the super powerful at the top will not actually be as insanely powerful as they are. This will shift some of the voting power down stream as well. As far as I know this is coming soon.

Plus if they get the communities eventually developed that will change things a lot so that we are not all looking at the same bucket with ever post in it. I know that is planned in the future as well.

And just because something is happening in the real world doesn't make it right. ;)

True but it also doesn't make it nefarious. A lot of it can also be chance, and quantity of people that notice it, or a person that is sufficiently influential noticing it. If it were intentional and nefarious then that would be an issue, but I don't really see that being the case.

So why not think of a better way to do something?

This is usually called "Discoverability" and it is an ongoing problem that nowhere has mastered yet. People keep trying new things though. Nothing wrong with trying. Yet often it is just trying to deal with how to get good content to people when GOOD content is a very subjective thing. If it was programmatically easy to detect the GOOD content from the bad content then there wouldn't be much need of us.

but I do think that you can find inspiration through other posts and see how the higher paid posts are formatted and such.

Yes, you can learn techniques. You can also be inspired by a post and offer your own unique perspective. These things are good. Some people though simply become more clone like than original and this should be avoided.

Noticing trends and working along with them to set your own

Yes this matters to some people. It doesn't really matter to me at all. I rarely even look at trending. So I'm not the best person to talk to about that as it is completely unimportant to me to the way I choose to do things. Some people may find it very important.

I think it may be further diluted. Really the best way to get exposure is to get followers, and that takes time.

Thinking about it, with the more users there are the more chances to gain followers there will be.

I don't think I quite understand the voting curve change other than it's "going to be good" lol I know very little about coding.

Plus if they get the communities eventually developed that will change things a lot so that we are not all looking at the same bucket with ever post in it.

Communities will definitely help to highlight material better than we're seeing it as of current. I look forward to that development.

True but it also doesn't make it nefarious.

I wasn't necessarily stating that there were nefarious motivations behind the way things may be, but just that when something is brought to attention that more than brushing it off as happenstance may be in order.

Yet often it is just trying to deal with how to get good content to people when GOOD content is a very subjective thing. If it was programmatically easy to detect the GOOD content from the bad content then there wouldn't be much need of us.

This is sort of what I was asking with the first question of whether it is possible to objectify value on the blockchain. I think there could be a way to detect it but then have us being the filters. I do not know how that would happen though.

Really good article mate.I don't see steem going down as more people buy steem even without knowing about the fact that steemit pays their users .The market cap as of today is $559,368,961 and only growing more.

I hope that is the case. Even if it goes down, I expect it to come back up. So little dips I expect. Though I do think ultimately it should keep rising. I don't see a currency out there that I think is better.

Well, as soon as I realized that my ability to benefit the posters of content I found useful depended on my SP, I cranked the slider over to 100%, where it remains today, and simply retained every bit of it as voting power.

Now, I haven't much. I couldn't pay rent, for example, if I wanted to, and I might, if I could. However I am working elsewhere, and as long as that remains the case, I probably will not remove any SP, for curation, and now, as insurance in the event of flagging.

And, despite my initial ignorance and misinterpretation of such avowals of felicity on Steemit as mere sucking up for money, I am myself seeing that there is much more to this community.

I some time ago abandoned facebook, etc. due to platform issues and the vapidity of content, again by design in the platform. There are things that could be improved about Steemit, no doubt, but it seems the data harvesting, censorship, and propaganda that have been incorporated into facebook simply aren't here.

Getting stomped on by an irritated whale is vastly preferable to swimming in a sea of corrosive propaganda, imho.

I believe it will be as long as we continue to be good examples and not give into the temptation to become uncivil when we encounter those who have not yet learned that acting that way is not really positive or beneficial here.

umm... maybe not. While I do act as to anticipate such good behaviour, I have noticed that there are people I would flag in real life, except that I would gag as I buried the flagpole into their craniums.

4chan will find us.

The whales might well be appreciated for their flagging abilities then.

Trolling doesn't get them followers, and it might even get them flagged. So it just is not something that works here if you have interest in actually making any money. Plus, if they are really bad people will simply mute them, then they don't get much community interaction either.

Wow I Agree Wholeheartedly, But Steemit Could Be Better Without The Downvote ! After All We Do Vote Every Time, When We Don't Give The Upvote Or Don't Comment To Somebody's Post ! Which Means The Person Loses The Possibility Of Making More Steem And That Should Be Good Enough As A Punishment !

The problem is there is a massive amount of SPAM and other things you don't see every day. Do you know why? We have bots that vote it down. So it isn't as easy as getting rid of the down vote. There are some things that need it. I saw what it was like here before that bot. For a few days you had to read 10 posts and 1 out of 10 was not spam. That bot cheetah and some others immediately fixed that. Remove the down vote and all of that cannot be stopped and it was bad.